Cassius Bright
Cassius Bright is a top-ranking senior bracer who is the father of Estelle and Joshua, Trails in the Sky's two protagonists. While not much is said about his early life, although it's revealed that he met and befriended Prince Judis, the late son of Queen Alicia, during his school years. After graduation, he joins the military academy and proceeds to climb up the ranks of the royal army, eventually reaching the rank of colonel. In addition to becoming General Morgan's aide-de-camp, he also becomes known for his supreme swordsmanship skills, obtaining the nickname "Divine Blade" and passing his knowledge on to many fellow soldiers while serving as a combat instructor at the military academy, Julia Schwarz and Alan Richard among them. Cassius' greatest accomplishment, however, came when war broke out between Liberl and the Erebonian Empire and the imperial army swiftly occupied all the country's regions aside from Grancel, which was protected by the Ahnenburg Wall. Two months after the start of the war, newly developed military airships are introduced to the battlefield and Cassius is the person responsible for coming up with the strategy behind the counteroffensive, focussing on cutting off supply lines and checkpoints, isolating the enemy's troops and defeating them one by one. Through this is widely seen as his greatest success, the turning of the war's tide instead turns into what he perceives his greatest failure when Rolent's clock tower is destroyed while his daughter Estelle and wife Lena are inside. Thanks to her mother shielding her from the debris, Estelle makes it out in one piece, but Lena dies in the process. Devastated by the loss of his wife and blaming himself for her death, Cassius left the army, despite the pleas of Morgan and Richard to reconsider, and even declined a medal from the queen. Returning to Rolent to be with the only loved one he had left, Estelle, Cassius gave up the sword and took up the bo staff instead, symbolizing his new commitment to bettering himself and the world around him instead of killing his enemies. Joining the Bracer Guild, Cassius becomes one of its most capable members, eventually ascending to the elite S-rank that only a handful of bracers on the continent belong to after solving a national incident in the Calvard Republic. Considered one of the most skilled men in Liberl, the Zeiss Central Factory and even Queen Alicia are quick to call on him whenever an incident needs to be addressed and he even gets requests from foreign branches from time to time. Despite this, he still frequently picks up minor jobs in his home region. Over the decade, Cassius' work has brought him into contact with people from all walks of life and many of those whose lives he influenced cross paths with Estelle at some point or another. He personally trained Scherazard Harvey, who walked in his footsteps to become a famous bracer herself. He confronted Agate Crosner, who was the leader of the Raven gang back then, and, sensing the sense of loss in Agate that he experienced himself, inspired him to turn his life around. He also met Zane while on a mission to Calvard with him doing the martial arts master a favor that the latter felt compelled to return in kind. The encounter that left the biggest impact on his and his daughter's life, however, was an encounter during a mission five years prior to the events of Trails in the Sky, when he's attacked by a child assassin, Joshua, who received orders to kill him. He manages to defeat the boy, but before he can leave, his assailant is accosted by several other attackers. Realizing that his failure to kill his target marked the boy for death and taking pity upon him, Cassius drives the attackers away and takes the injured boy home with him, nursing him back to health and adopting him as a son, unaware that Weissmann, Joshua's master, had been counting on that compassion and "programmed" the boy to frequently provide Ouroboros with intelligence on the Bracer Guild and Cassius in particular. At the start of Trails in the Sky, Cassius spends a day going through his paperwork while his daughter and adopted son go and take their bracer qualification test. While dropping by the guild later that day, he hears that Estelle and Joshua went after two kids who ran off to the Esmelas Tower north-west of town. Deciding to keep an eye on things and see how his kids will fare, Cassius follows the two of them and observes them from a distance. When a monster threatens to get the drop on them however, Cassius quickly rushes in and eliminates the threat, giving his Estelle some fatherly advice on how to grow as a bracer afterwards. Later that day, he gets a letter from one of the guild branches in Erebonia, presumably telling him about the attacks on the branches in the empire. He decides to leave for the imperial embassy in Grancel the next morning after having a brief conversation with Joshua about his time as member of the Bright family the night before. Estelle and Joshua receive an unpleasant surprise when they receive news that an airliner disappeared over the Bose region and their father's name was on the passengers list. When they finally infiltrate the hideout of the sky bandits who hijacked the airliner and locate the captured passengers and crew, they find out that Cassius isn't among them and the crew members tell them that he got off just before the airliner departed. After the sky bandits are arrested and the bracers return to the guild, the clerk working at the airport stops by and hands them a message and a package intended for Cassius. While the letter informs them that his current job will take him some time and that they're free to carry on with their bracer qualification, the package contains a mysterious black orbment as well as a note asking Cassius to have it examined by Professor Russell. Unable to make heads nor tails of the note, Estelle and Joshua decide to keep the orbment and proceed with their journey through the kingdom. Throughout her adventure, Estelle gradually learns that her father is much, much more than the "no-good middle aged man who's hardly ever home" she made him out to be as she comes across people whose lives he touched, culminating in the revelations that he was the man who turned the war in Liberl's favor. She also finds out that several of her allies were acting on Cassius' behalf, with Zane coming to Liberl in order to lend the Bracer Guild a hand should they need one while Kurt and Agate were investigating the movements of the Intelligence Division. Cassius returns to Liberl just as the conflict between the Intelligence Division and the alliance of the Royal Guards and Bracer Guild reaches its peak. Realizing the gravity of the situation with the army being under Richard's control, Cassius manages to free General Morgan from his imprisonment at Haken Gate and the two of them rush to the royal city. While General Morgan, Major Cid and Queen Alicia do their best to convince the army's battalions to stand down, Cassius follows his children underground to the altar at the bottom of the ruins where Richard activated the console and unleashed a giant mechanical monstrosity. Just as the mechanical guardian is about to finish Richard off, Cassius rushes in and cripples the robot by severing its right hand, leaving his kids to deliver the finishing blow. After greeting his children and their companions, Cassius turns to Richard who caused all this trouble because he felt he wouldn't be able to take over Cassius' position without an ancient weapon to compensate the difference in skill. When Richard tells his mentor that none of this would have happened if he hadn't left the army, Cassius angrily punches him and retorts that he was never an icon to be hailed and that he was only able to turn the war around because the people around him helped make it happen. He then tells Richard he wants him to think about what he did wrong while serving his sentence. After the Intelligence Division's coup is thwarted, Cassius is present at Estelle's and Joshua's promotion ceremony and is allowed by Elnan to lead the ceremony himself. After promoting Estelle and Joshua to senior bracers, he reveals that he's leaving the guild and rejoining the army in order to help reorganize it and repair the damage the coup caused. After the promotion ceremony he immediately heads over to the castle to attend a war council and have a meeting with General Morgan and Queen Alicia to decide what to do next. Relations Cassius Bright is the father of Estelle and the adoptive father of Joshua In his army days, he was the subordinate of General Morgan and the superior of Colonel Richard. He was also army buddies with Mister Fate. During his time as martial arts instructor at the military academy, he was the combat teacher of Julia Schwarz. After joining the Bracer Guild, he became the mentor of Scherazard Harvey as well as his kids. Having been a school friend of the late Crown Prince Judis, Cassius was a personal acquaintance of Queen Alicia. Category:NPCs Category:NPCs (Rolent) Category:NPCs (Grancel) Category:NPCs (Prologue FC) Category:NPCs (Chapter 4 FC) Category:Bracer Guild